Dire Straits Appreciation Thread

[Guybrush]

Something that's not discussed much here is Mark Knopfler's solo career. It is great, fairly extensive and contains more bangers than the Dire Straits discography.

[SGR]

Originally Posted by Guybrush

Something that's not discussed much here is Mark Knopfler's solo career. It is great, fairly extensive and contains more bangers than the Dire Straits discography.

I'll admit, I've never checked out his solo stuff, what album(s) would you recommend as a starting point Mr. Tore?

[Guybrush]

Originally Posted by SoundgardenRocks

I'll admit, I've never checked out his solo stuff, what album(s) would you recommend as a starting point Mr. Tore?

Great songs are peppered throughout his solo discography, so I don't think you can make a misstep. A popular starting point still is Sailing to Philadelphia from 2000 (much better than his solo debut which came before). The title track, a duet with James Taylor, is one of the most beautiful songs of his entire career.



I've long since tired of the album as a whole, including the popular What it is and Silvertown Blues, but Speedway at Nazareth is still a great song that might get an occasional play here.

Later on in his career, you'll find something great wherever you look. I'll post some songs that I personally find noteworthy, but I'll add that I generally prefer his folkier sounds and ballads rather than his bluesy stuff. So with that skewness in mind, I'll pick out some nuggets from some of the albums I appreciate (and I haven't heard them all).

His album Get Lucky has some great, great songs. The title song is fantastic, but also quite known/played, so here are a couple of other gems:






Kill to get Crimson is another great album that I like a lot. A couple of favorites from there:






From Shangri-La, Boom Like That (a song about businessman Ray Kroc who took control of McDonalds) is one of his biggest charting singles and a great song:




Privateering is a double album which is full of great songs like the pirate-y title track, Yon Two Crows, Redbud Tree, Go Love, Dream of the Drowned Submariner, Radio City Seranade. Presently, I think my softest spot is for the ballad Seattle, even if I doubt it charts highly on other people's favourites from this particular album.




Is this too much? I'm sorry.

Get Lucky, Kill to get Crimson and Privateering are all good second step albums after Sailing to Philadelphia. But I also haven't heard his latest two and there's a bunch of soundtrack albums that I haven't listened to. I have checked out his collabs with Chet Atkins and Emmylou Harris, but didn't find them as appealing as his solo studio albums.

Not to start a big argument, but I compare his solo career a bit to Morrissey in that it's got a lot of great stuff in it and more people should know about it.. Moz controversy aside

[bob_32_116]

Originally Posted by Guybrush

Great songs are peppered throughout his solo discography, so I don't think you can make a misstep. A popular starting point still is Sailing to Philadelphia from 2000 (much better than his solo debut which came before). The title track, a duet with James Taylor, is one of the most beautiful songs of his entire career.

I like that. Hadn't heard it before.

I'd say either or both of the guys had been listening to Jimmy Webb's song The Highwayman, which is very similar in style.

[Guybrush]

Originally Posted by bob_32_116

I like that. Hadn't heard it before.

I'd say either or both of the guys had been listening to Jimmy Webb's song The Highwayman, which is very similar in style.

They probably both knew Jimmy Webb, though I do find Mark Knopfler's style to be confident enough not to think of him as a mimic.. of course there are usually similarities in style to predecessors in any genre.

[DianneW]

Guybrush, when it comes to good music......never enough....

Great listening to all of those and going to use some of them as a Mark Knopfler thread on another place I hang about.

[Tubeileh]

So far only listened to their first album. Sultan of Swing was great, but the rest felt very bland. Sucks too because I really tried liking the album, since the cover art is probably one of the best i've ever seen

[SGR]

Originally Posted by Tubeileh

So far only listened to their first album. Sultan of Swing was great, but the rest felt very bland. Sucks too because I really tried liking the album, since the cover art is probably one of the best i've ever seen

Check out Love Over Gold if you feel inclined. A step up from their debut.

[Tubeileh]

Originally Posted by SGR

Check out Love Over Gold if you feel inclined. A step up from their debut.

Yep, that song was rather promising. I have a couple other albums by them queued up. First I got work myself through the New Order discography first. But yeah, love their guitar. Heard many guitar solos before but this is something new, idk how they do it.

[SGR]

Originally Posted by Tubeileh

Yep, that song was rather promising. I have a couple other albums by them queued up. First I got work myself through the New Order discography first. But yeah, love their guitar. Heard many guitar solos before but this is something new, idk how they do it.

Love me some New Order. Don't know how familiar with them you are, but it's rather easy to skip their post '80s output. If you do that though, just make sure you don't miss out on this gem from their '93 album, Republic.